This is due partially to the horrendous writing, partially to the bland designs themselves, and partially to a lack of any coherent vision for the game's visual design. If there's one thing that can be said from the PSX-era of FF games onward, it's that the games have taken a design-by-committee approach and it has utterly failed to produce interesting, franchise-able products.
The Future of Final Fantasy's Art Direction
- Thread starter RocBase
- Start date
There is controversy about Kingsglave and FF15 because not only are Kingsglaive's facial models based on actual western human beings faces, but FF15's game models are completely different from those in the movie, creating a huge disparity between the two.
I personally think Visual Works traditional model style should continue, but also be enhanced to take in some of that realism.
But i think that in games which are fully Japanese based, they should not succumb to fully replacing those traditional design choices with simple mocap of western actors faces. Everyone in the western industry does that, and while it bring impressive results, aren't exactly what Japanese games are known for
...Did you skip the PS1 and PS2 eras entirely to be saying that?
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
The problem is that different segments of their target audience want different things, so that makes it difficult to nail it.
I feel with Kingsglaive, FFVII Remake and Agni's Philosophy they've managed to find middlegrounds of east meets west that can definitely appeal to a large global audience.
Let's hope that this is carried forward in to FFXVI.
I feel with Kingsglaive, FFVII Remake and Agni's Philosophy they've managed to find middlegrounds of east meets west that can definitely appeal to a large global audience.
Let's hope that this is carried forward in to FFXVI.
Whatever they do next, I hope they never make a deal with any clothing company to use for the characters again.
The best thing about AC imo. I hope to see something like it in VIIr.
The best thing about AC imo. I hope to see something like it in VIIr.
I think FF8 and FF9 had the strongest art direction of the entire series....FF8 especially had some incredible monsters.
Not sure if serious.
I'd say 7, 8, 9, 12, 13 all have very coherent art directions on their own (never played the online ones) even though they are vastly different from each other, and that's why I love FF's art directions.
And PS3 era. FFXIII is not fun, but it is beautiful.
Eeyup. And it looks super weird now that they have turned away from turned base
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
I went back and rewatched the demos and she's actually wearing pants and stuff, it's like a GoT esque removable cape over a separate outfit that by itself is about the length of Red's ripped dress.PSY・S;209649247 said:
how does a gameplay style dictate a type of character design? Really really hate this type of thought process.
If people want that type of style, there are plenty of other places to get it.
The closest thing to 'grounded' i'd accept was Vagrant Story designs
The problem with this is that back when the game was Versus, everyone and their mother was wearing designer clothes. now only the main bros do, so they stick out and look worse compared to everyone else.
DangerMouse
Member
Yeah, her AC outfit is fantastic.
Their sales numbers are nearly a backwards slide since VII.
Inclined to disagree. I think the FFVIII designs, whether character or creature, are markedly inconsistent. XII and XIV probably have the most clearly defined worlds and creatures (i.e., monsters don't generally appear to just be random creatures that exist, but rather seem like they are part of the environment).
The type of money SE aims to make with these games means the art is going to be a mid-point of east and west at the absolute best. Realistically, I don't see them going backwards to a more distinctly Japanese look. It's only going to be forward from here on out. Who knows to what degree, but I think they're going to try and eat the lunch of their western competitors. And I wouldn't say that's a bad play. KG looks very good. They can compete in this arena, if they want to.
How does gameplay not dictate character design? In turned based games, characters just have to look good standing and cycling attack animations, in action adventure they have to look good running, jumping, attacking, swimming, climbing, things that look really out of place when a character is wearing an ornate dress.
AudioEppa
Member
I love the the way XV looks, one of the reasons it will be my first FF purchase.
Buut, if their future games could look like that movie 😳 MY GAWD! my eyes would be in gaming heaven. I can't wait for game graphics in 3rd person action adventures to reach that level, or even better.
Buut, if their future games could look like that movie 😳 MY GAWD! my eyes would be in gaming heaven. I can't wait for game graphics in 3rd person action adventures to reach that level, or even better.
Well, I think XII was more "grounded" than that(Vaan notwithstanding).
NipplesAndToes23
Member
Yeah, that shit would be incredible. I was thinking PlayStation 4 would be that, but we're still a ways away.
And yet they didn't hit anything near that before then either, their sales were markedly higher than times prior to 7 after 7 as well.
And so they continued with that kind of style, while most people hold those PS1 and PS2 games in very high regard, outside of minority opinion. So, saying declarative statements like everything in those generations was bad just because you personally thought so is ridiculous.
Which means they mostly just have to look like everything else in the environment. If the entire world is always wearing fancy things, it wouldn't break the world to see all characters dressed in such a manner. Basically gets back to basic animation, where how much the character blends with the environment (a person wearing modern military fatigues when everyone else is wearing chainmail is very out of place) and has strong poses is what defines them.
This is an astonishingly gross oversimplification. Even in turn-based games, you're still taking into account a ton of different animations. And characters exist outside of their battle system, too. They exist in cutscenes and in environments/levels themselves. Whether it's real-time or turn-based is irrelevant, really.
BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO
Junior Member
More realism but less k pop band.
Agreed. The FFXV clothing makes a lot of sense in the city area, but looks out of place in the wilderness where most of the game takes place.
But FFVI somehow worked with ninjas, knights, laser beam and chainsaw?
If that is the case, i hope FF15 fails and they don't have to bank on having to pander just to support extreme AAA budgets. Does that make me too extreme to take seriously i wonder? I bet it does.
Let me rephrase a bit...
Most of Japan's fledging core gaming industry has already figured out that the best way to survive is to only live within their means in lower scale A or AA development, and i think SE has to learn that too.
Or eventually, its going to become like an RE7 situation where you wonder what the point is of Japanese developers even making the games, if all they do is ape western trends to get sales while taking everything traditional fans like about the games out of them.
sorry but, what debate?
I don't think there is a right way to do it.
Every game is different and I love that about the series.
FFX had different graphics than FFXII, the same goes for FFXI and FFXIV, and finally FFXIII and FXV. They are all different and that's ok... and we even get a chibi World of Final Fantasy game soon.
so yea, I don't know what we should debate exactly, let the artists do whatever they want. If the story is good, is gameplay is good, if character development is good, then the game will be awesome.
Bring out the chibis, the realism, the comic version, whatever they want. If everything else is great, the game will be great too.
I don't think there is a right way to do it.
Every game is different and I love that about the series.
FFX had different graphics than FFXII, the same goes for FFXI and FFXIV, and finally FFXIII and FXV. They are all different and that's ok... and we even get a chibi World of Final Fantasy game soon.
so yea, I don't know what we should debate exactly, let the artists do whatever they want. If the story is good, is gameplay is good, if character development is good, then the game will be awesome.
Bring out the chibis, the realism, the comic version, whatever they want. If everything else is great, the game will be great too.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Wtf? This is an incredibly extreme mindset. Jesus, it's like you think the west is some evil sith corrupting force that Japan needs protecting from when we played a very large part in advancing the gaming industry last gen. It's not an "us vs them" situation, the development of gaming is all about collaboration and taking influences from other places. Quite frankly some of the most successful Japanese games are doing just that. Including FF.
Most modern re-assessments of those Final Fantasy games have found that they don't hold up all that well. I don't like using a "for their time" argument for how a series should proceed in the future. If the FFVII remaster is just the same game with better graphics, it's probably going to flop. Final Fantasy has lots of timeless attributes, but continuing to use attributes that don't hold up to modern scrutiny is what has caused its dramatic fall.
The thing is, those games never sell over a million copies outside of Japan in the first place. Why should SE follow their model?
If those characters werent sprites it wouldnt have worked
I don't hate the west, i'm from here obviously, nor do i consider myself any kind of 'weaboo' so please don't go to that conclusion.
I just think that japanese games have their own identity that makes them work and beloved by their fans, types of things that are fully separate from why people(including myself) love and enjoy western games. And trying to say they should eliminate those things just because some people find character designs unfitting or different from what they like or are used to in the market is not the way to go.
I think there is a way to move forward in game design and indeed, art direction without taking away that distinctness.
DangerMouse
Member
In the modern era (outside of FFIX) they've generally had a unique look somewhere between the two and I think that's where they should be.
I don't think they'll go for a "more Japanese" look (except maybe for one installment again sometime), but I do think many would like them to back off just a bit from the overly western looking faces of Kingsglaive. Visual Works has shown they can do a very unique mix of the two styles that is unique to them, whereas Kingsglaive to many goes a little too far in one direction.
FF7R and FFXII show they can do a good mix of the two in both modern and past settings quite well that doesn't generally let either style dominate the other.
The game was a mish-mash of modern technology and magic, so yes. Characters blended well with the world because of their strong grounding to various aspects of it. They were also considerably more abstract and that greatly benefited their believability (as Sn00zer said, sprites). The Tales games are probably the closest to taking this sort of mish-mash into 3D without it looking really awkward (though many of the games still look really awkward).
You can account for the very many western people buying and playing your games without giving up your identity. Why deal in extremes? They're capable of a marriage. I think in all likelihood that's what they'll aim for.
You still have to keep in mind that Japanese tastes are... well. Japanese.
It's why you aren't seeing a deluge of Japanese devs jumping on the FPS train, for example.
(Korea on the other hand, about two dozen CS/CoD4 clones in the past decade)
I agree.
As said before, they mocapped real western people's faces instead of a stylized animeish CG look based on illustrations that visual works is known for. That sets some people's teeth on edge that they are going to do away with their traditional style entirely at some point and just start mocapping western people for their games, which i think would take away significantly from the appeal.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Not outright eliminate, but modernize. Sitcking to old norms part of why the Japanese gaming industry ended up that way in the first place. Especially considering how homogenous so many things from Japan are, (even more so because the indie scene is basically dead over there compared to here), it would be great to see them move away from that. The west has long since stopped being defined by brown and grey shooters, and lack of risks, it would be great if most things in Japan moved away from being defined by anime or modernized the concepts behind those things. Using mocap is one such thing, let's be completely honest, mocap on 3d anime characters rarely looks good, this looks like shit. Imagine if they adopted the performance capture standards set by the west by scanning actual actors in and letting them perform in the roles. It's hard to argue how that wouldn't be a big improvement that would help in the long run.
Ironically, I would be happy with the hyper-realism if they put it into 'World of Final Fantasy." I'd love a Monster Tamer game with the FFXIII/FFXV style of behemoths, and it would make the Monster Tamer angle have more of a point.
In the mainline game though, it looks a bit silly since they look like fashion models and it kinda clashes with the other elements of Final Fantasy. I think this is going to hit VII:RE hard.
I don't think the games are too western, I think they're too realistic. Final Fantasy still has its roots in animation and as it gets further away from that cartoon-y and/or anime visual style it gets closer to the uncanny valley (basically, realistic renderings are now at a point where they're creepy rather than endearing).
Would much prefer if they took a cue from Overwatch's visual design and went with that in whatever future FF they decide to make. Their strange obsession with a realistic style in a world where magic still plays a huge part makes their games look awkward.
The indie scene didn't die there. It just works in a different way (for example they don't use Steam to distribute their games) and no one cares to bring their indies over here. But I do agree that JP game industry grows slower than before. Though I'm not sure "ditching the anime" will solve it.
Sure but I don't think it's something you have to worry about. As Falk alluded to, they won't stop being Japanese.
I'm sure they'll take in constructive criticism(hopefully in regards to the gameplay and localization) as they want each game to be as successful as possible.
It's their prerogative to take each game in what direction they see fit. It's what they've always done.